ALM Busycircuits ASQ-1 Cheat Sheet

Recently I came upon an ALM Busycircuits ALM 035, the ASQ-1 Eurorack Multimode Sequencer. It’s a marvelous thing. Two tracks of CV and Gate sequencing, four tracks of trigger sequencing, and a quantizer. It’s “SH-101 style” in the sense that there is no screen, and the premise is step, hold, rest type sequencing, or tap sequencing for your tracks, but I found after about 2 minutes with this instrument that it needed to be out of my modular case and into a case of its own. So I scored a 4MS Pod32 powered case, and I emancipated this wonderful sequencer onto the console of my spaceship for use sequencing anything – the modular (of course), the MC-202, SH-101, Jupiter-8, Pro-One and triggering all sorts of things too – my beloved Boss HC-2, PC-2 pedals, percussion modules, and anything and everything with a trigger input. But the best thing about this is not just that it’s got the classic analog style that I love so much, but that it has upheld this creative standard of autonomy, and it’s given us memory locations. Something the venerable CSQ-600 only has 4 of, and my darling CSQ-100 only has two of. I can save patterns, trigger tracks, and quantizer settings and load them individually, or all together at once. It’s ace. It’s so fun.

I found the manual to be written so beautifully in English that I couldn’t understand it. The key combination section prioritized the key combinations rather than the functions, and since I never (ever) go searching to figure out what holding the HOLD button, and then tapping the RST key does, rather I would search for how to MUTE a track. So I set out to decipher this manual and make a list of the functions, and their associated key combinations. That became tis document which I am not sharing with you, because I love you, and I want to celebrate and encourage you to make music, to play live, and to have fun.

Here is version 0.1A (the debut release) and it is for Firmware version 008. I will update this as things develop, and try to keep this side document, approved by, but not associated with ALM themselves. I didn’t design this, I didn’t invent anything, I am just making clear lists so that I can develop muscle memory, and not need this sheet anymore, and hopefully that will be helpful to you too.

Enjoy!